Entertainment,Intelligent, or Hybrid Programming? An Automated Content Analysis of 12 Years of Political Satire Interviews

The research considers the balance of intellectual versus entertainment-oriented individuals appearing as interview guests on political satire programs. Specifically, the analysis employs semi-supervised learning to categorize the occupations of individuals appearing on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report between 2003 and 2014 (N = 3,507). The results confirm that satire programs have become an important outlet for politicians and journalists looking to connect with a younger audience. More often than not, these guest appearances privilege a newsworthy and intellectually oriented discussion of contemporary issues and ideas as opposed to the promotion of entertainment content. Important to note, the data set represents the largest body of political satire content analyzed to date and the results confirm the value of applying automated and semi-supervised learning coding within communication research. We conclude by discussing the methodological contributions of our coding process, future directions for political comedy research, and the scalable potential of automated coding efforts.     

A partial backordering approach to inventory control

We study the effects of using a partial backordering approach to controlling inventories under deterministic and stochastic demands, respectively. With a deterministic demand, our model is built with the objective of minimizing the total cost of ordering, holding, backordering and lost sales. The conditions for the partial backordering policy to be feasible are identified and a pair-wise comparison among the no-backordering, complete backordering, and partial backordering doctrines is conducted. In the stochastic case, we focus on a make-to-stock system with a Poisson demand and exponential production time, which allows us to establish a queuing model to examine the cost-effectiveness of using partial backorders. The conditions under which the partial backordering policy outperforms the complete backordering policy are identified.     

Should You Order the Feedback Sandwich? Efficacy of Feedback Sequence and Timing

This study sought to investigate the efficacy of feedback sequence—namely, the feedback sandwich—and timing on performance. Undergraduate participants performed simulated office tasks, each associated with a feedback sequence (positive–corrective–positive, positive–positive–corrective, corrective–positive–positive, and no feedback), presented in a counterbalanced fashion. Half of the participants received individual verbal feedback delivered privately by the researcher immediately after each session, and the remaining participants received the same type of feedback immediately before each session. The aggregate data suggested no feedback was the most efficacious for participants who experienced feedback prior to performance, and the corrective–positive–positive sequence was the most efficacious for participants who received feedback following performance. Differences in feedback timing were not significant except for the no feedback condition. These results document that the feedback sandwich was not the most efficacious sequence, despite claims to the contrary.     

Sociology in the high school: Perceptions of those who teach it

The following research note reports two major findings of a more detailed study of the opinions, training, and practices of teachers of high school sociology in Texas. Two major findings of interest to the discipline emerge from the research: (1) high school teachers are only marginally prepared in the field of sociology itself; (2) teachers generally give sociology's reputation as a discipline a favorable rating, while at the same time showing concerns about whether or not they would recommend sociology as a college major. The implications of teacher attitudes and training for the discipline are explored.     

Evaluating excellence: A model of evaluation for public relations practice in organizational culture and context

This paper represents the development of an innovative and comprehensive model designed to measure public relations excellence within an organizational context. Drawing on established scales of evaluation for public relations practice, researchers propose a measurement model situated within excellence Theory. Through a partnership between the research team and The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) organization, a case study approach was developed and implemented, highlighting the relationships between organizational culture and communication. The Excellence in Organizational Context model was tested within the AER, using empirical data gathered through in-depth semi-structured interviews and a self-report questionnaire survey conducted with individuals from various identified organizational stakeholder groups. This mixed-method approach was employed to explore and understand the multi-dimensional nature of public relations practice within this organization.Researchers investigated eight dimensions of excellence in this model. Initial findings indicate that the Excellence in Organizational Context model proposed here is a valid and appropriate method for measuring public relations performance when applied as a mixed-method approach for measuring practice and establishing context within an organizational culture. This indicates the need for both organizational, stakeholder, and sector/national level data in confirming relevant benchmarks.     

Integrating Space With Place in Health Research: A Multilevel Spatial Investigation Using Child Mortality in 1880 Newark,New Jersey

Research on neighborhoods and health increasingly acknowledges the need to conceptualize, measure, and model spatial features of social and physical environments. When ignoring underlying spatial dynamics, we run the risk of biased statistical inference and misleading results. In this article, we propose an integrated multilevel spatial approach for Poisson models of discrete responses. In an empirical example of child mortality in 1880 Newark, New Jersey, we compare this multilevel spatial approach with the more typical aspatial multilevel approach. Results indicate that spatially defined egocentric neighborhoods, or distance-based measures, outperform administrative areal units, such as census units. In addition, although results do not vary by specific definitions of egocentric neighborhoods, they are sensitive to geographic scale and modeling strategy. Overall, our findings confirm that adopting a spatial multilevel approach enhances our ability to disentangle the effect of space from that of place, pointing to the need for more careful spatial thinking in population research on neighborhoods and health.